Local author promotes market-based health care reform

The nation should be looking for market-based solutions to health care reform instead of increased government control, a Colorado Springs-based author and founder of one of the nation’s first health maintenance organizations said Wednesday.

“The health insurance system we have today is not quite flat-lined, but is headed in that direction,” said Steve Hyde, author of “Cured: The Insider’s Handbook for Health Care Reform” and founder of Peak Health Care Inc. “The government has intervened in the health insurance market and made it impossible for it to function. We have dozens of programs and regulations to solve the symptoms and effects of market failure, but haven’t dealt with the causes.”

Hyde called the Affordable Health Choices Act now being debated by Congress “the most egregious health care bill introduced in 40 years” and predicted it would drive the health insurance industry out of business and doctors and hospitals into bankruptcy. He instead advocated to get employers and the federal government “out of the health care business” to allow consumers to buy their own health care coverage in a competitive regulated market.

Employers should give their employees the money they now spend on health care coverage and let them buy their own policies and health care, and the government should give low-income persons enough money to purchase their own health plans or medical services, Hyde said. Government regulations would require insurers to base premiums on a person’s age, gender and location but not on what illnesses they have or have suffered from, he said.

Insurers should be allowed to charge higher premiums for those who are obese, smoke, abuse alcohol or don’t control their blood pressure, blood sugar or cholesterol as an incentive for people to live healthier lives, Hyde said. About 75 percent of health care spending goes to treat chronic diseases that could be prevented by changing behaviors, he said.

“Market forces have provided us with high-quality and affordable food, clothing, housing, transportation and recreation and can be harnessed to do the same thing for medical care by allowing insurers to profitably sell policies to all,” Hyde said to about 75 people attending the Limited Government Forum’s monthly luncheon at the Cheyenne Mountain Resort.

Hyde’s book was published last month by Denver-based HobNob Publishing and is available on Amazon.com. He is now a health care industry consultant; Peak Health eventually became part of Minneapolis area-based health care giant UnitedHealth Group Inc.through a series of mergers and acquisitions.

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Contact the writer at 636-0234.